The invention relates to a process for consolidating and/or plugging a mass of the particles or permeable material in a location that is relatively remote and hot, such as a region in or around the borehole of a well. The invention is particularly useful for emplacing a formation-strengthening plugging material within a permeable structure such as a subterranean reservoir.
Treatments for consolidating a mass of particles in a relatively remote location, such as an unconsolidated reservoir or a sand or gravel mass within the borehole of a well, comprise known and commonly used procedures. The present invention relates to a particularly advantageous type of such a treatment, one completed by contacting the particles with a single aqueous liquid.
Resin-forming mixtures of polyepoxides and amines of the types used in the present invention have been used or proposed for use in prior processes such as the following. The process of Havenaar and Meys U.S. Pat. No. 3,294,166 permeably consolidates a subterranean sand by first displacing water away from the region to be treated and then injecting an oil-phase liquid solution of a resin-forming mixture from which the solidifying resin is precipitated. The process of the E. A. Richardson U.S. Pat. No. 3,339,633 is similar except for using a more concentrated solution of resin-forming materials and over-flushing to ensure permeability. The process of the Bruist-Hamby-Simon-Tuttle U.S. Pat. No. 3,621,915, and also that of U.S. Pat. No. 3,857,444 form permeable resin-consolidated sand or gravel packs by coating the pack grains with oil-phase liquid solutions of resin-forming components in polar solvents, suspending the coated grains in liquids that are partially, but incompletely, miscible with the solutions of resin-forming material and then pumping in the suspensions. The process of the Knapp and Almquist U.S. Pat. No. 3,933,204 plugs plus (and consolidates) a permeable subterranean formation by injecting an aqueous emulsion that contains dispersed oil-phase liquid solutions of both acrylic and epoxy resin-forming materials and polymerization rate controlling materials and forms a relatively solid gel throughout the volume occupied by the emulsion.
A process for manufacturing a low cost construction material was described by A. S. Micheals in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry, September 1960. In that process a resin-forming mixture of polyepoxides, an amine and an organic solvent was mixed with an aqueous slurry of sand grains. The so-treated sand grains were then strained free of liquid, pressed together, and cured at about 340.degree. F., to form a construction material said to have high strength, high bonding efficiency, and good water repellency.